I think the pressure was ON GRRM to release TWOW before the series could catch up to him. The minute that was out of question (over a year ago), he gave up on the urgency and I think he's going to release when he feels it's 100% finished.

I would add to this that often times when one gives up on a deadline, one's rate of productivity declines horribly. When you are racing against the clock, you tend to really burn on all cylinders, and the need to finish gives you the adrenaline to keep going. Once you realize that it's a lost cause, the adrenaline stops and the crash often is huge. I have been through that a couple of times, and it is a miserable experience: and rates of productivity decline when misery is high.

Whether WINDS or the first volume of FIRE AND BLOOD will be the first to hit the bookstores is hard to say at this juncture, but I do think you will have a Westeros book from me in 2018... and who knows, maybe two. A boy can dream...

When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, when the seas go dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves.... then and only then will TWOW come out.

Lol! My favourite response to this whole thread!

I did toy with waiting for the show to finish even if the book comes out first... and then I can concentrate on the true story from GRRM but my resolve would last about 2 minutes before I crack the front cover.... I'm just going to take whatever ASOIAF content I can get, in whatever form it comes in.

There was a news item recently that indicated that HBO was not releasing the final season of GOT (6 ninety minute episodes) until 2019. I'm not sure how authentic the story was, and have since forgotten where I read it. But if true, we may get WOW before the next season. And seriously, stop pretending you won't all read it as soon as it arrives.

I'll be in no hurry to read it.
Ideally I would borrow it from the library, but I read slow these days, and I wouldn't get very far before I had to return it (there would be a waiting list, so no renewals).
So I would wait for the paperback anyway.

There was a news item recently that indicated that HBO was not releasing the final season of GOT (6 ninety minute episodes) until 2019. I'm not sure how authentic the story was, and have since forgotten where I read it. But if true, we may get WOW before the next season. And seriously, stop pretending you won't all read it as soon as it arrives.

Where did you hear that the episodes would be 90 minutes? I've heard the 2019 speculation, but not that one.

And seriously, stop pretending you won't all read it as soon as it arrives.

Well, after the show ends, the series is going to drop off of a lot of our radars pretty quickly. It also will fall off of the radar of popular culture pretty quickly. A lot of people who now watch the show religiously might not even hear about the release if it comes out too much after the show ends. And, let's face it: if GRRM ever gets around to getting out the last book, it almost certainly will be with the same sort of whimper that met the release of the last Robert Jordan books.

"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise, don't put it there."
A. P. Chehkov